The Scooby Gang had practice at making accommodations. In Sunnydale, they had been like a youth hostel for wayward Potentials. Xander was hoping it didn’t go that far, with the teenage girls forming lines outside the bathrooms and daily brawls over low-fat dairy products. The horror...
Still, he was a good sport in surrendering his sofa bed for Mikayla and Anjelica. Maya agreed to hang out one more day to help with the cooking. This was a particularly generous offer, considering that
Andrew had phantomed on them and Willow had returned to Westbury to confront Kennedy on her anti-Buffy slay-fest. The arrangement displaced Xander to the fold-a-bed in the game room, but he couldn’t complain. He knew how to cook in a beans-n-weenies on a hot plate way. Dawn had been banned from the kitchen for her outlandish experiments with tofu and Weetabix. And Buffy once made toast.
Maya busied herself in the kitchen making King Ranch casserole, substituting nacho chips for corn tortillas since London groceries lacked such. She was politely dodging Dawn, who came downstairs for maybe the fortieth time to reference something on the Circle against a scrap of paper. Maya had suggested Dawn just bring her work downstairs. Dawn grunted dismissively and plodded back to her room.
Xander came up from the basement, toting pillows. Maya said, “Is Dawn always so tenacious?”
“Did she insist upon soy cheese in the casserole?” Xander asked. “Because if she did...” He shuddered bodily.
Maya chopped canned chilies into a fine green paste on the butcher board. “No. But she’s been researching for hours without a break. Should we intervene? And by we, I mean you,” Maya said.
“Oh no,” Xander said. He slipped a pinch of grated cheese from the bowl on the counter. All cheddar. No soy. “I vowed to never intervene on Dawn’s behalf. I still have the scorch marks on my neck.”
“Scorch marks?” Maya fluttered.
“Long, really long story,” Xander said. “Hey, corn chips!”
Buffy came in from the hallway. “Corn chips. Gimme.” She snatched the bag from Xander.
“They’re for the recipe,” Maya protested.
Dawn came back downstairs. She hovered at the dining table, hair all mussed, pockets under her eyes large enough to hold loose change.
“Hey, Dawnie. What’s up?” Buffy said, taking the chips with her. Maya trailed along, thus Xander followed.
Dawn turned to them as if seeing them all for the first time. “Oh, um...”
William came in. “The mini-Slayers have had the full tour,” he said. “I’m off duty. Xander can play RA next round.”
“Will there be a next round?” Xander asked.
“Dawn,” Buffy said, more firm. “You have worry face.”
Dawn said, “You hate corn chips.”
Buffy glanced from the bag to William, then handed the chips off to Maya.
“You defaced a book. Bad you,” Xander said. He pointed to the frayed and discolored edge of the pages Dawn clutched in her hand.
“More like de-bodied,” Dawn said.
“Giles is gonna have you kneel on dry beans and recite Hail Mary’s,” Xander said.
“It’s the Damas journal,” Dawn said. “But I need Willow. And I need Andrew. It’s all big chunks of not making sense.”
“Why’d you debook the book?” William said.
Dawn raked her hair back. “Remember when Giles said we needed to search for the Compendium of Prophecies? That it was Damas’ favorite pastime?”
They all nodded, vaguely. William said, “Yeah, niblet. What of it?”
Dawn gestured to the scrolls that formed the Circle. “This is it. The prophecies. But they’re in code. See?”
This drew a round of blank faces.
Dawn tapped the pages with her fingers. “These pages, the entries, they aren’t dates. I noticed a connection between the couplets on the scrolls and the numbered entries. So I dismantled the journal, and I’ve been pairing them up,” she said. “Chock full of prophecies. But the going is slow, with me as solo translator.”
Xander, Buffy and William were dumbstruck. Dawn smiled a little in spite of herself.
“Well,” Buffy said, at length. “Anything of use yet?”
“Yes,” Dawn said. “Maybe.” She searched the scrolls, looking for a particular couplet. “This one,” she said, pointing.
The others gathered in. Maya got so close to Xander, the chips crunched in the bag between them.
“This one relates to the prophecy regarding the Master,” Dawn said.
Xander shrugged. “Would have been helpful, oh, say, seven years ago...”
“And this one,” Dawn said, indicating another couplet. “Talks about a prophecy about something having more demons than to shake a pointy stick at. That’s a rough translation.”
“What about Thellian?” Buffy said.
“No direct mention. Yet,” Dawn said. “But my bedroom floor is papered with the pages of this book, so I still have lots of ground to cover. And I did find one, which may be relevant.” Dawn located one of the couplets near the symbol of the Rose. She shuffled her pages and read the corresponding entry.
“Here,” she said, clearing her throat. “It says, ‘A vampire with a soul will play a pivotal role in the apocalypse.’”
“Shanshu,” William stated.
“You’re sure?” Buffy asked.
William blew out a long sigh. “I’m sure.”
“There’s more,” Dawn said. “The sea will run with blood and the world will witness...”
“The world will witness Destruction as it has never seen,” Buffy said. They all looked at her. “The Sisters,” she said. “It’s what they said.”
“Okay,” Xander said. “Getting heebies of the jeebies kind.”
“Seas running with blood,” Maya said. “That’s Revelations.”
“I think you’re getting the picture,” Buffy said. “What else is there?”
Dawn skimmed the page. “There are words here... Demonic words, I think. I need Andrew to be sure about them. But, again, very loosely, it says, ‘A Circle forged in the demon age will awaken with a dual purpose, or it may be nature. With a vampire’s blood, a lineage undone, or by the blood of a child which unites the blood of a Champion with the seed of a virgin. This child will bring ruination or grant succor...’”
William’s brow wrinkled. The furrows there were becoming permanent lines of apprehension. He bent to whisper in Buffy’s ear. “Pet, I need a word.”
She said, quietly, through constrained smiley teeth. “Wait is a word.”
He nudged her. “Now is a word. I need that word. Now.”
“Oh fine,” she said. She went along with him, through the back room and into the garden. The others they left behind to wonder.
William closed the door firmly behind them.
“If you’re going to entreat me not to patrol, I might knee you to the groin,” she said in a faux chipper tone.
“Buffy,” he said. He struggled to say something, but promptly tromped away. It was nippy out, and she was not in the best of moods. That whole ‘Kennedy mutinied and took all my students’ thing was not how she wanted her week to wind up.
William prowled back and forth across the lawn, flattening the grass beneath his boots.
“William,” she said.
He babbled as he paced. “We thought it was us. Of course we did. Chosen Ones, all about the power and the pre-ordained weaponry. But it’s not us. Not us. They wanted what was inside,” he said, gesturing wildly. “What was inside. Holy vessel. Seed of a virgin. Joke’s on old Spike. Couldn’t see it, but it’s bloody there in bold print...”
“So hating the channeling of Drusilla,” Buffy said. She was impatient, yes. But also concerned. He was talking like he had when the First had its feelers in his brain.
William strode up to her. He smoothed his hands down the length of her arms. “Buffy,” he said. “The prophecy with the child...”
Buffy looked heavenward. She put her hands to her temples, smiling gently. “Look at Mr. Paranoia,” she said. “It can’t be us. It said ‘virgin’, William. I mean, I’m no Madonna, but I have had...”
All color had fled from William’s face. “I was born in a different, very different time,” he said. “I was son to a respected doctor. A gentleman.”
Buffy looked confused. "And...?"
“And as such,” he went on, clenching his jaws. “Buffy, men in my time, in my station. There were things not done. Things not considered in polite society.” He paused, waiting for her to catch on. Still she only stared.
William made a pained sound. “My first was Drusilla, Buffy. After I became a vampire,” he said. “Don’t you see? I am the virgin in question.”
A stunned silence elapsed. Full twenty seconds of complete and utter shock, before Buffy burst into laughter.
Appalled, William watched her, laughing at him. Which made her laugh even more.
“Bit vulnerable here, luv,” he said, quietly.
She slapped the sleeve of his shirt. Tears squirted from her eyes. William bit his lip, but couldn’t help himself. He started laughing too. After a bit of this, they had to hang on each other just to remain standing.
Xander popped his head through the door, bringing their laughapalooza to a speedy halt.
“We sane people inside want to know what could possibly warrant such an outburst,” Xander said.
Sobering quickly, William said, “We were just remembering a... movie.”
“Very humorous movie,” Buffy added. “About...”
“Vampires,” William offered.
They knew they sounded nothing like convincing. Sensing a cover up, Xander decided to push.
“Which movie?” he said.
“What?” William asked.
“Movie,” Xander said. “You said vampire comedy and I’m thinking I’ve seen every title.”
“Dracula 2000,” Buffy blurted. “Very funny. Like vampires would do any of those things, with the... stuff.”
Xander said nothing. He shut the door, leaving them with his best fatherly glare.
With the laughter gone, Buffy felt scoured out and scared.
“It can’t be us,” Buffy repeated.
“It is us,” William said.
He touched his forehead to hers. He felt like an ant under a magnifying glass, like the best he could do was make sure she didn’t get herself blackened.
“We should go,” Buffy said. “We can talk more when we’re on patrol.”
~*~
Blood stained Angel’s hands. It spread across the cave floor in a black pool. It matted in the tangled fan of Kennedy’s black hair.
“It didn’t work,” Thellian said. It was a statement bereft of emotion.
“What do you mean, it didn’t work?” The Priestess snapped. “How do you know?”
Angel stared at the smears of blood on his fingers. Absurd thoughts of Rorschach ink blots floated like ghosts in his mind.
“She is not the one we need,” Thellian said.
The Priestess stormed around the outer rim of the Circle. “You did it wrong,” she shouted, pointing a bony finger at Angel. “You sabotaged us.”
Angel raised his eyes. The look in them brought her to a hasty stop.
Thellian rested his hands in the small of his back, arms akimbo. “Angel knows what this means,” he said.
Angel pressed his lips into a thin line.
“Well share, big boy. Let’s have it,” The Priestess said.
Luxe cut his eyes at her, but she, being one with her infinite badness, ignored him.
“It means,” Angel began. He wiped his hands on the tails of his shirt. Then started again. “It means Buffy is the one.” And, Angel thought, all I've done is buy some time...
The Priestess watched him, eyes glinting predatory. Then she threw her head back and cackled. The sound was like thousands of flapping bats in a belfry, and it unnerved Angel to the point that he decided he’d like to kill her before all of this was done.
“That’s rich,” The Priestess said, between her hideous hacks of laughter. “Buffy is the alpha, after all. It makes sense. Still, it was worth the try with this one. Now we know.”
“Maybe Faith...” Angel offered. Immediately, he wished he had not.
Thellian stepped over the spreading pool of blood. He measured Angel with an alien precision. A silence ensued. Even the Priestess with her limited grace knew better than to break it.
Only Thellian had that power. He said, “Can you do it, Angel? Can you slay the Slayer?”
Angel remained still. He turned the blade in his hand.
“Perhaps you don’t understand what’s at stake,” Thellian told him. “Perhaps you have lost your ability to see the whole picture.”
Angel shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said. “Don’t ask this.” Angel turned, ready to exit, ready to wash the blood from his hands.
“Your son, Angel,” Thellian said. The words rang out like crystal bells in the dark.
Angel gripped the hilt of the dagger so hard its ragged edges bit into his palm. “What about my son?” he asked.
Thellian came to stand inches behind Angel, near enough to put his hand on his shoulder. “The Slayers know of the Circle. It is only a matter of time before they discover its secret,” he said.
“And that is?” Angel said, raising his tone.
“That the Circle turns both ways,” Luxe said, stepping in. “They kill you, and it is your bloodline that dies.”
“Vampires,” Angel said.
The Priestess leered. “Pretty un-nifty, huh?”
“Not just vampires,” Thellian said. He measured out every syllable for the perfect theatrical effect. “Tell me, Angel. Connor’s mother: she was what exactly?”
Angel’s heart twisted and lurched like a drowning creature. “Darla was a vampire,” he said.
“And you,” Thellian said. “Also a vampire.”
Angel faced Thellian. “You knew this. All along, you knew that Connor...”
Thellian walked slowly away from Angel. He nudged Kennedy’s chin with the toe of his eel-skin shoes.
Luxe said, “In truth, we hoped it would never come to this. We wanted the Circle to remain buried. I went to great lengths to ensure that its conservators kept it secret.”
Thellian continued his deliberate steps. He said, “Ironically, it was Miss Summers who awoke the Slayer line, she and her Witch. She accelerated my plans. I could have held out forever, Angel. I could have waited until the civilizations of today lay crumbled beneath layers of sand. Yet here we stand.”
“It’s our destiny,” The Priestess said, echoing him like a perfect little crony.
“And Connor is your blood,” Thellian said.
Angel wiped the D’Ganti blade on his pants leg. He felt the weight of it against his palm, and swallowed the lump in his throat.
“Connor is all I have left,” he said.
~*~
The front door the Westbury house swung open, crunching over glass in the foyer. Willow stepped gingerly inside, not knowing what to expect.
She found the hall table had been uprighted. The mirror that hung over it had been smashed. Shards of mirror-glass littered the Persian carpet she and Kennedy had bought together at Notting Hill. Icy tendrils of fear spread through Willow’s body. She bent to the rug, searching for blood. She found the brass mail holder trailing a dozen or so unopened letters and cards. Willow scooped them up, tucking them into her shoulder bag before moving beyond the foyer.
Willow strained to hear the sound of voices. She hoped against what she already knew that perhaps Kennedy and the girls were upstairs. Maybe there had been a disagreement. Slayers tended to be a temperamental lot.
Willow centered herself. She reached out with her mind to check the wards on the house. They hummed with a warm goldeny glow, just like they were supposed to. Her protection spell was unbroken, which meant that whatever happened here, it all went down inside.
She heard nothing. Felt nothing. The house was a barren shell. Worse than that, Kennedy and the others were gone.
Foreboding filled her. Willow covered her mouth and nose with steepled fingers. She regretted the things she and Kennedy said to each other. She swore, should she have the chance, she would make it right. She prayed for the chance to just make it right again.
Willow turned to leave. As she did, her foot kicked a crumpled piece of mail across the glassy floor. Willow bent to retrieve Connor’s postcard. She turned it over, smoothing it out between her steady hands.
“That’s odd,” she mumbled to herself. “Angel has the blade.”
Willow tucked the postcard into the front pocket of her purse. Angel has a knife, and Connor wants us to know about it, she thought. More importantly: Why?
The house felt cold. Willow hugged her arms to her chest. No point in staying if the reason she was here was gone. Willow decided to check in with the Coven before heading back to the Flat.
Maybe Buffy would have better news.
~*~
They never made it out to patrol. When Buffy and William reentered the hallway, the telephone was on its second ring. Dawn beat them to the receiver.
“Andrew?” she asked. Dawn listened for a moment, then looked up, eyes wide. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, she’s here.”
Dawn passed the phone to Buffy.
“Yes. I’m Buffy Summers,” she said. “Who’s speaking?”
Buffy was nodding. She steadied herself against the phone stand. “That’s right. We’re his family,” she said. “Is he... all right?”
“What...?” Xander mouthed.
Dawn said, “Hospital.”
“Parkside Memorial?” Buffy confirmed. “I’m on my way.”
Buffy slammed the receiver into its cradle. She was tugging her jacket from the coat rack when William snagged her elbow.
“Let me go,” she said. All at once, she was pulling away and imploding.
“Buffy,” Dawn said, gently. “What is it?”
“It’s Giles,” she said. “He’s hurt.”
“Oh no,” Maya said. “How bad is it?”
Buffy appeared lost. She said, “I have to go.”
“Wait,” Xander said. “We’ll all go, Buffy. I mean, he’s our Giles too.”
Buffy bowed her head. “There’s just so much...” She choked on her words.
“Let’s go,” William said. “I’ll drive.”
For once, Xander didn’t object.
They were on their way out of the door, when Xander saw Maya teetering in the hallway, not sure whether she should join them or return to her cooking.
He slipped back inside.
“Maya, I hate to even ask but,” Xander began. “They just got here. Plus, Andrew may come back with information.”
“I can stay here,” Maya said. “Wait with the Minis till y’all get back.”
Xander firmly kissed her forehead.
Maya watched them go. She felt a silly surge of protectiveness, like she didn’t want them to leave.
“I can do this,” she told herself. She went back to the kitchen and her chopping board. Soon, she had pulverized a whole peck of peppers. “Yep,” she said. “I can do this.”
[Reviews - 65]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 1387 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +